Eazine, there's a saying in Chinese medicine (we are actually quite fond of ancient sayings since they define our medicine) that says "The earth element creates dampness and the metal element stores it."

This means that while dampness is often created in the spleen/stomach (earth element), it can easily migrate to the lungs and large intestine (metal element). This results in a cough with phlegm, diarrhea or smeary stools that require a lot of paper to clean up.

For dampness to travel form the stomach downward to the large intestine seems kind of reasonable, but for dampness to travel up to the lungs is less intuitive. Still, if you find that a big meal aggravates your asthma, or if you notice some bloating, gas, gurgling when you have asthma, there is likely a connection there.

Not all asthma comes from a digestive problem, though. There's also the "stress induced" kind that we call "qi stagnation". This requires a different treatment principle.

Regarding the tongue with the white coating. A "thin white coating" is considered normal in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Having ZERO coating is problematic, and having a coating that is so thick that you can't see through it to the body beneath is also problematic. But the thin white coating is okay.

-al.

Hi Folks, I'm Dr. Stone, the guy who came up with the tongue-diagnosis quiz at Beyondwellbeing.com (which I just recently moved to EagleHerbs.com, but no matter.)

A quick note to "happy now", there are two causes for scalloped tongue edges. One is due to too much of something, and the other due to not enough.

The "too much" means that there is a fluid metabolism problem, this arises from the digestive system, that's why people call it candida or "sugar and grain". Basically what you're seeing with a plump tongue with teethmarks is edema in the tongue. Start eating better, and that can go away. If not, herbs are good, mostly those that "drain" or "transform" dampness. See your local TCM person for more on that.

The "not enough" reason for teethmarks or "scallops" comes down to a fatigue situation. When you get tired, your muscles lack the oomph to maintain their shape. The tongue is a muscle, and when there is fatigue, the tongue can take on the shape of its container because it doesn't have enough strength to maintain its own shape. This tongue will have the teeth indentations, but it will be thin and perhaps kind of flaccid-looking.

In both cases, one will want to support the digestive system. In the first option, you'll also want to address the fluid metabolism. In the second case, you only need to support the digestion (or "Spleen/Stomach" as we say in TCM.)

Hope that helps. -al.

Here is a site that walks you through a self-diagnosis, with pictures and explanations.

http://beyondwellbeing.com/herbs/tongue-diagnosis.shtml

It's based on traditional Chinese medicine. The problem is that you end up with information like Qi deficiency: 1.0, Cold Damp: 0.5 etc. If you don't know what that really means, it isn't a huge help, but it does give you some info along the way.

Check into traditional Chinese medicine. Looking at the condition of the tongue is an important part of their diagnostic method. There is a whole lot you can tell about your health from the tongue.

Ive been told a white pasty tongue is indication of candida.

Probably so. I have asthma and when I start getting sick my tongue gets a white coating often times it's got irregular circles of areas without the coating. When I was a kid my mom would look at my tongue to see if I was pretending to be sick.

I believe it. When I was recently kicking the crap out of my intestines with gluten, my tongue not only swelled, but looked kind of white and pasty with teethmarks in the side (the swelling was pushing it into my teeth). Now that the gluten is gone and I'm starting to cut through some of the inflammation it's much better. Not 100% perfect yet, but SO much better than it was. Unless I've missed something, it looks like it should be back to normal soon.

There is something to this.

Back when I was eating SAD I saw an accupuncturist who always asked to look at my tongue. She saw that there was an indicator of GI distress, but I insisted I felt fine. This happened each time I saw her. She told me she was looking to see if there was a sort of line down the middle but I can't provide any more specifics. During this time, I also visited a Gastroentrologist for some minor stomach pain -I had history of bleeding ulcers so wanted to be extra careful. He assured me that I was fine, if I had an ulcer the pain would be much worse than I was describing.

Fast fwd a couple months and I am in the hospital for bleeding ulcers again. Neither the hospitalists, my GI doc or PCP could figure out what was causing the ulcers, ruling out the primary causes- h-plyori, NSAID use, and others. I ended up seeing a Naturopath shortly thereafter who had me tested for food allergies and came in sky high gluten intolerence.

So, Western medicine failed to diagnose and treat me, but Eastern and Nautorpathic did. 4 months later off all grains and doing great!

it absolutely speaks volumes about your health! Ayurvedic medicine practices have talked about this for thousands of years. I'd suggest books by Doctors Vasant Lad or Robert Svoboda.

For example, if the tongue is coated with a white film, it indicates that ama (roughly translated as toxins) exists in the large intestine, small intestine, or stomach depending on which part of the tongue is coated. A pale tongue may indicate an anemic condition, and a yellowish tongue may indicate excess bile in the gallbladder or a liver disorder. Blue (and not after blueberries) can indicate a defect in the heart.

It also gets deeper into which parts of the tongue correspond to which organs, and what the different lines may mean. Really amazing stuff.